A HEADQUARTERS DETECTIVE.
Nick Carter and his two assistants had been gone since the morning, and no report had come from them, nor had any one else gone ashore from the Cherokee, when, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, Captain Lawton told Van Cross he was going to see the agents to whom were consigned his miscellaneous cargo, so that he could begin to unload in the morning.
“Those fellows here would never come to me unless I went to them,” growled the commander. “They think a tramp steamer doesn’t need to be treated like a ship belonging to a regular line. Well, I’ll make them pay for that, too. You’ll see. Cross—you’ll see!”
He dressed himself in what he called his shore-going toggery, and gave orders for a boat to be brought around to the foot of the sea ladder, with four men.
Captain Bill Lawton had his own little vanities. One of them was to go ashore in a strange port in state, with four oarsmen to propel him from his ship to the landing stage.
As the captain prepared to descend to his boat, he turned to Van Cross and shook his fist at the town across the harbor.
“What are you going to do, cap?” asked Cross carelessly. “What have the people of San Juan done to you?”
“Done? Some of them have got my six hundred dollars.”
“You mean that high-toned passenger of ours has it?” grinned the mate. “You can’t blame the people of Porto Rico for that.”
“Can’t I?” yelled Lawton. “Well, I do. When I get ashore the police have got to get my wad back for me. If they don’t, by Cæsar, I’ll raise a revolution in politics in the town that will put half of ’em out of a job.”
It was at this moment that he saw a boat coming up to the Cherokee in a businesslike way, with a frowning, dignified man in some sort of uniform cap in the stern, while two fellows, who looked like ordinary dock wallopers, plied the oars.
The official in the stern was dark-haired, and wore a heavy black mustache. He had eyes that seemed to pierce anything at which they looked. It was not easy to say just what color they were. In some lights they seemed to be a yellowish green, like an angry cat’s.
“Hello!” he shouted, in a gruff voice, as he saw Lawton.
“Hello!” replied Lawton, equally gruff.
“This the Cherokee, from New York?”
“Yes.”
“Captain William Lawton in command?”
“That’s my name.”
The captain had had an occasional argument with the police of San Juan, as he had in many other ports, on account of doubtful cargoes. He did not care for the police on general principles, therefore.
As this man in the boat, who looked like a lieutenant in undress uniform, questioned him, he tried to think of anything he had done against the law in Porto Rico the last time he had been there.
The man in the boat did not give him much time to think, however. He told his men to row up to the ladder and make fast.
They hardly had had time to obey, when he stepped out of the boat, and with one hand touching the hand rope lightly, as if he did not need its help, mounted to the deck.
His eyes seemed to take in everything at a glance, including the crew and captain. He touched Lawton on the elbow in a peremptory way.
“Take me to your cabin. I want a word with you,” he snapped. “There is my card.”
He thrust the card into Lawton’s hand, and pointed, with an offhand gesture, to the companionway. The captain read the words on the card with anything but a comfortable feeling. They were:
“Detective Lieutenant Sawyer, New York City.”
That was all, but it was more than enough for the skipper of the Cherokee. He did not know that he ever had seen a detective’s card before, but he supposed this was the regular formula.
Only a few moments previously, Captain Lawton had been anxious to get to the police, to complain about the loss of his six hundred dollars. Now that there was a detective at his elbow—probably a good one—he felt nervous. His own record was not clean, and he feared that this stern-mannered Sawyer might know more than would be healthful for him.
When they reached the cabin, the detective shrugged his shoulders as he glanced about him.
“Lost anything?” he snapped. “Looks as if you’d been making a search down here.”
“I’ve lost six hundred dollars.”
“Stolen?”
“Yes.”
“Some of the crew?”
“One of ’em. A man I signed on in New York, just to help him out. He was flat broke. This is what he did to me in return. Came down here and looted the cabin. But I’ll get him! I’ll sure get him! If he’s anywhere in Porto Rico, I’ll get him.”
“Don’t you think he was drowned?”
“No. Some of the crew saw him swimming, and he was headed for shore. It was early morning, and not light. That gave him a chance to get away, and he made the shore all right, no doubt.”
“You only think that, don’t you? You are not sure?”
“Sure enough to satisfy me,” growled Lawton. “In fact——”
“Well, that’s no business of mine,” interrupted Sawyer. “I want you to answer a few questions.”
The imperative manner of this man from police headquarters, New York, awed Captain Bill Lawton, in spite of himself, and he prepared to tell anything that might be asked of him.
“All right, lieutenant,” he grunted.
“Have you a passenger on board named Miles?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“In his stateroom, I believe. He went in there a while ago, and I have not seen him on deck since.”
“Is he a young man, who looks as if he might be a sort of society darling—plenty of money and nothing to do but to blow it in?”
“That fits him.”
“Tall, rather light-brown hair, gray eyes, and straight nose?”
“That’s a photograph of him,” replied Lawton. “You’ve got his description all right. What about him?”
“Nothing much.”
As the detective lieutenant said this carelessly, he took a pair of handcuffs from the left-hand pocket of his coat and placed them in one on the right.
The captain started. This looked like serious business for somebody. So long as it was not for himself, however, he did not care. Excitement was pleasant to him, as a rule.
“What do you want him for?” he asked, in a low tone. “He has kept himself away from me and the other officers all through the trip. I didn’t think much about it, but I can see now why it was.”
“That was the reason,” remarked Sawyer dryly. “He’s charged with stealing about eighty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds and other jewelry from Mr. Stephen Reed, of New York.”
“What, the multimillionaire?” exclaimed the captain.
Sawyer nodded.
“Holy smoke!” ejaculated Lawton. “I heard of that job before I left New York. But it never struck me that I had the man who did it right on my ship. Why, say!” he added eagerly, moved by a sudden thought.
“Well?”
“I’ll bet it was he who took my six hundred dollars! I’ll——”
Captain Lawton made a dive across the saloon toward the door of a stateroom. Sawyer grinned momentarily, straightening his face before the other could look around.
“Wait a minute, captain!” he ordered. “Don’t ask him anything about your six hundred. Leave that to me.”
“I’d like to take him by the throat and throttle the money out of him,” hissed Lawton.
“I dare say. But that wouldn’t be according to law. Let me handle him. If he has your money, I’ll guarantee that you’ll get it back.”
“All right!” answered the captain reluctantly. “If I have your word, why——”
“Well, you have my word,” was the quick assurance. “I’ll hide behind this curtain at the foot of the companionway until you bring him out of his stateroom. He’s a desperate man, for all that he looks so meek in general, and I don’t want to have a fight here. It isn’t necessary, and I always like to do my work in a quiet way—when I can.”
“What shall I say he is wanted for?” asked Lawton, hesitating.
“Tell him he has to sign a declaration for the customs department. Be sure you don’t give him a hint that there is anything wrong.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” snapped the captain.
“Of course you’re not. I don’t mean that he would hurt you—or me, either. But he might have a gun handy, and send a bullet through his own head. That’s all.”
“I’ll be careful,” promised Lawton, as he went to the door of the stateroom and knocked.
Sawyer was behind the sailcloth curtain that protected the saloon from the wind in bad weather, but he could see everything done from a narrow chink.
The door of the stateroom was flung open, and Paul Clayton stood in the opening, his figure silhouetted against the light that streamed through the porthole behind him.
“Custom officer on board, Mr. Miles,” announced the captain gruffly. “You’ll have to declare any baggage you have. They are particular here in San Juan.”
“I don’t see why,” objected Clayton. “We have come from one American port to another, and have not touched anywhere. It seems strange to me.”
“It’s the regular thing. That’s all I know. I’ll call the custom officer. He’ll come down to see you.”
Paul Clayton turned back into his little cabin, and cast a rather anxious glance at the suit case on a chair at the back.
“Very well!” he said, at last. “I’ll stay right here till he comes.”
Captain Bill Lawton went to the companionway, and, as he ascended, he whispered to the officer from police headquarters:
“There’s your man. I’m going on deck.”
“All right!”
For a minute—or a fraction of one—during which the still-puzzled skipper ascended to the deck, Sawyer stood behind the sailcloth portière. Then he swung out and strode down the saloon with an official step that no one could mistake.
He stopped opposite Clayton and looked him steadily in the eye. Placing a hand on the young man’s shoulder, he said coldly:
“Paul Clayton! That is your name?”
“Yes.”
“I am from police headquarters, New York. You are under arrest.”